Leonard DiCaprio Looks to 'Beat the Reaper'

Le sigh. The idea of Leonard DiCaprio beating the Reaper inspires notions of Leo facing the evil and irresistible grin of Ray Wise. (He's fun and all in Reaper, but it would be so much cooler to see Wise take the devilish role to darker, eerier places.) Unfortunately, that's not this kind of reaper. In fact, it's not a devil-led reaper at all.

Variety reports that New Regency is working on getting the rights to Josh Bazell's upcoming novel Beat the Reaper, for Leonardo DiCaprio to star in. Unlike the reaper-riffic television show, the book follows an emergency room doctor in New York City whose life is going smooth and easy until he runs into a mobster. However, this isn't a case of the crimelord corrupting the doc and making his life miserable -- rather, the mobster recognizes the doctor as a former hitman. See, the man went into the witness protection program, cleaned up his act, and became a body fixer, rather than a body-breaker.

Well, while I wish we could get big-screen Wise, this definitely sounds like a fun twist on the whole "running into a mobster" scenario. Thoughts?